The LA Times business section reports on Isreali-born, Georgia-based importer Pini Haroz’s efforts to bring the wines of Galilee to America. Called Grapes of Galilee, the wine is made from grapes are “grown beside the sea of Galilee, watered by the Jordan River.” The labels display images of Our Lord and Savior by the LA artist Morgan Weistling.

We haven’t tried this wine yet, so we don’t know if it’s any good. But the real question, of course, is will it wash away our zins?

Grapes of Galilee isn’t the only wine from the Holy Land. The 2004 Recanati Merlot is supposed to be quite good, ”reminiscent of ripe red berry fruit, strawberries and pomegranates.” Sounds heavenly. If you’d like to try it, click on the label below.

The Grey Lady’s in Her Cups — in ‘Frisco
In a recent travel piece, the NY Times travels west to San Francisco, there to sample ‘Frico’s wine bars. Included therein is: The London Wine Bar, which, while an old fave of mine, is so far from London as to render its name utterly absurd; Nectar, which I’d never heard of but will try next time I’m in Bagdad-by-the-Bay; the inimitable champers bar, Bubble Lounge; and The Wine Merchant, located in the refurbished Ferry Building, the fanciest, schmanciest farmers market on the left coast. In addition, the article’s author, Gregory Dicum, cites vinography.com, a blog that keeps track of the comings, goings and stumblings among SF’s wine bar flies. Go figure. Despite the fact that our names are almost too similar to be a coincidence, I’m giving vinography.com space on the blogroll.

Don’t thank me, vinography.com, just send wine.

Lot’s Wife
I used to work with Jessica Kogan when I was slaving away in Interweb consulting. She’s a great gal who married a great guy, Cameron Hughes. Together they now run Cameron Hughes Wine, a unique outfit that buys high-end wines in bulk “lots,” does a little creative blending here and there, and resells them to you, at great prices, under their own label. These wines are always a great bargain. (The Cam Hughes website has a great page that shows how a wine’s cost is broken down.)

Anyway, Cam just and Jess just released their new lots, including:

• Lot 39 2005 Barossa Shiraz — “Opulent”
• Lot 40 2005 McLaren Vale Cabernet — “Fleshy and ripe”
• Lot 41 2005 McLaren Vale Shiraz —- “a big kiss of black pepper”
• Lot 43 2005 Dry Creek Zinfandel —  “The nose smacks of boysenberry”
• Lot 44 2005 Rutherford Cabernet — “Toasty”

Cam’s wines are available at many West Coast CostCo stores. Check ‘em out. For the price, they never disappoint.

Th.J.
Founding father, Thomas Jefferson, was a great lover of wine. During his stint as ambassador to France, Jefferson collected thousands of dollars worth of fine Bordeaux. In fact, he was probably America’s first wine snob, and, according to John Quincy Adams, was America’s first wine bore. “There was, as usual, a dissertation upon wines,” Adams wrote flatly in his diary after dining with Jefferson. “Not very edifying.” 

What if you found bottles that looked a couple hundred years old marked “Th.J” in a bricked-up cellar? What if they belonged to Thomas Jefferson? How much would you think that they are worth? Could you prove it? Would you drink the wine in them? The New Yorker has a delicious article on what may be the wine scandal of the century…

Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported, Nontsikelelo Biyela, 29, is now South Africa’s first black woman winemaker. Biyela, a Zulu, runs the cellar at Stellakaya winery in the Cape Winelands.

Noted the Times: “South Africa’s wine industry has long been run by white men who said blacks lacked tradition.” If it’s true that people actually said that—the Times does not quote a source—then that’s got to be the one of the stupidest things anyone in the wine world has ever uttered, even coming from the formerly apartheid state. It assumes that winemaking—a mixture of engineering, art and luck—is some kind of genetic behavior rather than a learned skill, like a beetle rolling a ball of dung. It’s like saying someone can’t grow quality rice unless he’s Chinese, or an American Indian can’t learn to ride a horse properly because horses aren’t indigenous to America.

It’s nonsense, as the legion of graduates from all backgrounds coming out of the U.C. Davis School of Viticulture & Enology, who with no previous tradition in the craft, produce wines that can compete favorably with wines from all the world, so ably demonstrate.

Well, whatever. Congrats to Nontsikelelo Biyela and I hope we’ll be able to sample her wines sometime soon.

To learn more about South African wines and wine-growing regions, visit the Africa page in the Regions section.

—Michael Mattis, Proprietor